The Greenhouse: Where Fantasy Meets Reality

Three years ago (maybe four), I saw an ad in a discount tool store sale catalog, and thought I'd found a way to fulfill my lifelong dream of having a greenhouse. 

To be perfectly honest, I wanted a greenhouse that was a "glass house". I imagined a lush tropical garden inside, the sweet fragrance of flowers filling the air year-round. I anticipated starting plants from seeds on my workbench, and growing herbs and vegetables, even in the winter. In this fantasy greenhouse, I'd have a table and chairs so that my friends could join me for prissy-girl-lunch-parties. The fun we would have! I couldn't wait. 

What I bought was a $600 box of parts with a set of directions that didn't quite match up. The frame was aluminum and the panels were flimsy and definitely not glass.

I was not quite ready to give up the fantasy, so I hired someone to do the ground work and gravel floor. More hundreds of dollars.

The gravel floor looked so good that I hired someone to assemble the whole mess (AKA kit). I don't want to be negative about my employee, but, to put it simply, he could neither follow the directions nor complete the project. In his defense, they were terrible directions.

At last, I begged my tall nephew to come help me finish the assembly. Unfortunately, the aluminum frame had been bent a bit during the non-direction-following days, and it never did go together perfectly.

I finally proclaimed it perfect (even though it wasn't) and filled it with shelves, a work bench, seeds, and pots. 

Then, the first storm came and I spent part of the next day picking up panels and replacing them. I put the clips that held the panels back in a more secure manner. I was sure it would hold.

It didn't. 

Two years went by. The storms came. The panels blew off. 

I put them back on with dogged determination and caulked them in place. They blew off. Over and over again. 

Finally, I wore out. The roof panels were too high and I couldn't get them back in before the coming storm. In desperation, we tied a big blue tarp onto the greenhouse and left it for the winter.

By this time, my fantasy had crashed and burned, but I still wasn't ready to give up. Yes, I have literally given the talk on perseverance.

The Hired Hand had a great idea. I should buy some tarp straps to hold the panels in place. I bought the best ones I could find, but they wouldn't stretch far enough. We were out of solutions. 

The Hired Hand finally offered his opinion. We should tear it down and burn it. I still wasn't ready to give up.

Finally, more to humor me than anything else, he suggested I try bungee cords. I just shook my head. After the blue tarp and the failed clips, I didn't have any hope for bungee cords. Since it was my last hope, though, I finally gave in and bought a dozen cords. 

I tried to attach them, but they wouldn't stretch.

I was utterly dejected. After all those hundreds of dollars, all those hours spent reattaching panels and clips, and all the tubes of caulk I'd squirted out, it seemed like I should have a better outcome.

One Saturday morning, I woke with great resolve. I would not be denied. 

I hauled my ladder from the barn, enlisted Sam to hold it, and climbed up with my bag of bungee cords. We worked for hours, stretching bungee cords, praying fervent prayers for help, and sweating as I tugged the cords and begged them to reach across the panels.

After what seemed like weeks, but was only a few hours, Sam and I were drenched in sweat but the cords were in place. The panels seemed secure.

Then, the storms came. The wind blew. The rain poured down. To my absolute amazement, the panels held secure.

They are still in place, the bungee cords hugging them to the frame. For now. Bungee cords, as you've probably guessed, are not a long-term solution. My panels seem secure right now, but they aren't.

I don't know about you, but I've found that life is a lot like those greenhouse panels. More flimsy than you expect, and apt to fly apart at the least little storm. There is nothing this world offers than can hold our lives together when the winds and rains of adversity beat down.

There's nothing that will hold us together, that is, except the no-slip grip of the hand of God. If your life seems frazzled and flying apart, maybe you need the security of the One who created this world and everything in it. The One who sustains the universe and keeps the stars in the sky. 

No matter what comes our way, our God can see us through, hold us together in the worst of times, and bring good from all the bad things we face.

Today, let's stop looking at the storms and turn to the One who made the wind and the waves. The One who calms both the storm and the child in the storm. 

Turn to Jesus and let Him handle whatever you face.

"And he got up and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, "Hush, be still." And the wind died down and it became perfectly calm." Mark 4:39 NASB

"And He is before all things and in Him all things hold together." Colossians 1:17

"I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand ." John 10:28 esv
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In case you missed it, here's the link to yesterday's post: The Frog Surprise and Having an Egyptian Heart

Here's the link to the prayer guide: The Prayer List 

You might also like these greenhouse stories:
Digging, Ditches, and Water
The Blessing of the Busted Pipe 
In But Not Inside 
The Greenhouse
Making Preparations
Answered Prayers in Disguise

#stormsoflife #disciple #greenhouse

The Greenhouse

For all my adult years, I've wanted a greenhouse. Although I am an avid gardener and have spent a significant portion of the last quarter-century growing most of my own food, it seemed like an unnecessary indulgence. I had a son to raise and livestock to feed. There was always something higher on my priority list. 

About a year ago, I began to seriously consider a greenhouse, and, for the first time, I began to pray about a greenhouse. I found exactly what I wanted. I'm ashamed to tell you how expensive it was. "Lord, I could feed a village in Africa for a long time. I can't buy that," I prayed. I just couldn't justify that kind of expense. 

A few days after Christmas 2013, I found a sale paper from a "man store".  They had a greenhouse kit that was just about the size I wanted, with the doors I wanted, and at a price much less than I was willing to pay. I was pretty surprised, but I went to look. It was my greenhouse. I pulled out my debit card and they rang it up. I was a greenhouse owner!

The problem was that I was the owner of a greenhouse kit, not an assembled greenhouse. Not to be deterred, I pulled out the instructions and prepared to build a greenhouse. The first step said to dig a hole a little larger than 10 x 10 feet and 5 inches deep, then fill it with gravel. You may not be surprised to hear that I got my shovel out, convinced my son (home on Christmas break) to help, and started digging. We had a fair-sized hole before we finally admitted defeat and called for heavy machinery. 

Andrew had just the equipment I needed and was happy to handle the hole. We arranged a time, and he said three words I did not want to hear. "Unless it rains."  Of course, at the appointed time, it was raining like crazy. I called Andrew anyway. "Miss Leanna, I can't dig that hole with it raining. It's just gonna fill in and I'm gonna make a bad mess in your yard.  You don't really want me to do it now."  Really, I did. We agreed that he would come when it dried up. But it didn't. Next, the ground froze solid, thanks to the single-digit temperatures. Andrew kept promising me he would dig my foundation and the weather kept messing me up. I despaired of having a greenhouse. 

At last, the weather cleared, the foundation was laid, and we began assembling the greenhouse. It was more tedious than I expected, and required a bit more height than I have. I enlisted Bill the Magnificent to help. He much prefers cows and scooping pooh to building greenhouses, but he tried hard to help. At last, the end was in sight, but the front of my greenhouse wasn't square. 

That didn't matter at first. I had no idea what was wrong, but there was plenty to do. I finally reached the end of what I could do without help from a tall man. Since my nephew is well over six feet tall, I recruited him. For four hours, we worked side by side. He assembled the vent windows, installed the roof, and worked on the front. He fretted about the "square" problrm the entire time. 

Not being square didn't matter too much until time to insert the front wall panels and assemble and hang the doors. Then, it was a disaster. We tried hanging the doors. I can't even described how lopsided those doors were hanging. We didn't know what to do, so I started praying. "Lord, I've waited a long time for a greenhouse, and this isn't really the greenhouse I wanted, but I can be happy with it. In fact, thank you for this greenhouse. I believe I can be happy with these messed up doors, too."  Just about the time I got up the part about being happy with my messed up doors, Sam said, "I see it!"  

It turned out that, in the early stages, Bill and I had put one bolt on each side in the wrong place. It had everything off kilter. Sam rearranged the bolts and the entire front of the greenhouse instantly squared up. I was amazed that one mistake early on could make such a mess in the end, but it did. I shouldn't have been surprised, I've had that problem in life more than once. It just goes to show... Every little thing really does matter. 

I'm a greenhouse owner at last.  As I looked at my newly finished greenhouse with its square front and the perfectly hung doors, one verse came to mind. "For I know the plans I have for you, declares The Lord, plans for welfare and not for calamity, to give you a future and a hope." ( Jer 29:11) it turns out, a calamitous greenhouse wasn't in the plan at all! 

This is Sam, my nephew who saved the day and finished the greenhouse. 

The Blessing of the Busted Pipe

My greenhouse is still in the box. Well, it's in multiple boxes. The single-digit temperatures and the generous downpour of rain played havoc with my plan, and I have not been happy about it. Every day, I have grumbled silently that the man has not come to dig the foundation and haul the gravel. I have stewed unhappily that it is hard to walk in my house for all the plants inside. This waiting for the greenhouse has not been easy!

As I waited, a wonderful blessing was silently unfolding.  The frozen pipes have all thawed, and today we found that one had burst from the frozen water. This is particularly wonderful because it is the hydrant in my garden. It has always been in the MOST inconvenient place, but I never had a reason to justify the expense and effort of moving it. Today, however, I have a serious flood occurring right where my greenhouse was going to be located. There is enough water rushing out of the broken pipe that knee-high garden boots are required for wading, and if not staunched soon, I will be building an ark. 

You may not remember this, but my planned greenhouse location was not even on my list of preferred sites. It was chosen (after a bit of unrequited whining) because of its proximity to the hydrant. The pipe that burst will need to be repaired and the prospective repairman suggested now would be a good time to change it. Indeed it would. I will still have a hydrant in my garden, but we will also run a water line to the spot that was FIRST on my list of preferred sites. 

The blessing of the broken water pipe! In any other situation, a broken pipe would not likely be welcome. Today, however, it is the best thing that could've happened, and I am giving thanks for the blessing that came disguised as adversity.